Syndicate: UMSU’s Workers’ Rights Action Group

The rights of young workers are under attack, it’s time to stand up and fight back.

Students are at an all time maximum of pressure. We’re expected to perform in the top percentiles of our overpriced undergrads, so we can get into our extremely overpriced postgrads, so we can get a good job, so we can still be paying off our mortgage at 65 as we make Mi Goreng for the third time that week. All the while, because our lush universities are in the super affordable inner north, we’re expected to live close by to uni, ride our bikes in and pay the heating bill during the winter. To any of us not qualified to receive a livable wage from the government disguised as exactly half your rent + food budget, you’re expected to work. Go to work in bars, in restaurants, in cafes, in fast food. You’re expected to show up, have your uniform prim and proper, be your friendliest-best-self for 8+ hours, and still get 85% on your essay.

You don’t get to choose when you work, whether you’re on permanent early morning shifts, whether ‘business has picked up, so we need you for 30 hours this week’ or ‘it’s slow and we can only offer you 10 hours’, whether you’ll get a break before that assignment is due at midday and be able to quickly turn it in. Don’t worry though, historically this has happened to plenty of groups of workers and you’re not alone.

This is the part of this doom and gloom story where the heroes at Syndicate save the day.

The expectations of you as a student are at an all time high, and law is on your side.

Syndicate is about educating us as a group on our rights as workers, supporting workers who have run-ins with dodgy bosses and fighting to improve those rights through collective campaigns.

We’re all dumb poor students so we organise on Facebook. If you’re a worker with questions, an activist with strong feelings on the rights of workers or just a cool mate looking to hang out with either of the former, we want you to join our Facebook group here.